GUESS WHO

Your never gonna believe this. Guess who stopped by our house today for lunch and a play date.

Don't you see him?

Look closely, there to the left of a pant-less Khage.

It's Buzz Lightyear. If you can't see him, well safe to say your an adult and lost all your childhood sense of imagination. Picture me feeling sad for you.

And in true Khage fashion, answering the door for his imaginary friends dressed in a pair of jockeys and socks.

I say that like its a weird thing.

And for all we know he's got his imaginary pants on.

Fridays are a special day in our house. Typically I am pretty controlling around here. I'll put that right out there, I'm not ashamed of it. But when Friday rolls around its a little more laxed; Khage gets to pick what he wants to eat for lunch... and picking his lunch is a pretty big deal to this kid. I like to sneak pureed veggies into unsuspecting dishes whenever I can, so biting into a quesadilla that doesn't ooze green cheese is always a good day for him, but even more fun is that he also gets to invite over an imaginary friend.

He chooses the character and I give their mom a call. Mickey Mouse has stopped by a few times, then Woody and now Buzz.  And in case you were wondering, all their moms have been very nice. Mickey's mom is a little full of herself, but that's to be expected, her son is hugely famous.

I initiated Mission Grow Imagination about a month ago, and at first Khage didn't understand the magic in pretending. He would just sit back, very skeptical, and observe me as I talked to his friends. If ever Khage wanted to talk to them too, he would ask me to relay messages between them. He couldn't hear his friends when they talked to him and he definitely couldn't see them.

But now to him they are very real, as real as those pants he's wearing.

Khage is a very creative boy but needs a little boost in the make believe department, and this does just that for him. He has a very practical sense this one and he knows that his toys aren't real, and that I can't have. After all, the kids only three and I don't want him not believing in the tooth fairy before he even looses a baby tooth. But today he actually played with Buzz, they even wrestled together. They rolled around in the living room while Khage laughed and jumped around, thrilled to be doing something out of the ordinary. Something a little... magical.

Incase you are calculating how many hours of therapy he is going to eventually need to fix this mess, I want you to know that I am not tricking/forcing him into seeing these pretend friends. We have discussed how they are not real and its just fun to use our imaginations and pretend. I remember as a child wanting so badly to have an imaginary friend... only to find out years later that I could have had one all along. I don't want Khage to miss out on the wonderful magic that comes along with playing pretend, so now the pretend knocks on his door...